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Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether oridonin is able to increase the effects of lentinan (LNT) in HepG2 human hepatoblastoma cells by MTT, flow cytometry, reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analysis. The in vitro results demonstrated that 20 µg/ml of oridonin was a nontoxic concentration for L02 normal liver cells and HepG2 liver cancer cells. Furthermore, treatment with 0‑200 µg/ml LNT was only able to decrease the viability of HepG2 liver cancer cells. The growth inhibitory rate of the LNT‑L (100 µg/ml) treatment group was 20.7% and the rate of the LNT‑H (200 µg/ml) treatment group was 54.8%. Notably, the growth inhibitory rate of the oridonin + LNT‑H group was 84.3%. The highest percentage of apoptotic cells was observed in the oridonin + LNT‑H group (20 µg/ml oridonin and 200 µg/ml LNT). The percentage of apoptotic cells in the oridonin + LNT‑H group was significantly different from the percentage of apoptotic cells in the LNT‑H (26.1%) and the LNT‑L (16.8%) groups. Treatment with LNT produced an increase in caspase‑3, caspase‑9, Bcl‑2‑like protein 4, p53, p21, nuclear factor κB inhibitor‑α mRNA and protein expression and a decrease in B‑cell lymphoma 2 and nuclear factor‑κB expression in HepG2 cells compared with untreated control cells. Treatment with a combination of oridonin and LNT‑H induced a further increase in expression with the biggest differences in expression observed between the oridonin + LNT‑H group and control. It was observed that treatment with oridonin was able to increase the anticancer effects of LNT in HepG2 cells. Therefore, oridonin may be used to sensitize cells to LNT.